


The night begins to turn

by Believerindaydreams (deepandlovelydark)



Series: Raging against the machine [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherhood, Comedy, Dead Money DLC, Hurt/Comfort, Spies & Secret Agents, Survival Horror, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 15,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/Believerindaydreams
Summary: With the next battle of Hoover Dam coming up fast, Benny's intent on following up any lead that'll help save New Vegas.Arcade would like to make sure as few people die along the way as possible.But the hunt will lead them down a hard road, scored with blood, old grudges, and love that never let go...
Relationships: Benny (Fallout)/Arcade Gannon
Series: Raging against the machine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100771
Kudos: 6





	1. Flashforward

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between the penultimate and final chapters of "Until the twelfth of never", as befits a DLC.

"Wish you had your ripper now," Benny says, meticulously wiping corrosive off a knife the color of no blood Arcade's ever seen.

"We might not want to be exposed like that." By mutual agreement he's taken the holorifle, a weapon familiar in its loading if nothing else. It should be easy to take comfort from that.

Aside from the part where they're lost and empty-handed and entrapped with bomb collars, of course.

His itches. Quite a bit. The temptation to fiddle with it, try to patch together what he knows about the things to tear them off immediately, just wanting to scratch his neck in peace, is maddening.

"I'm sure," Benny says, scrubbing hard with the metal wool, "you'd be glad to hear about how in my pitter-patter, cheese-a-minute youth, I got into much worse situations than this."

"If this is a spiel...spiel away."

"Okay. I'd be lying. This makes being snatched by Fiends look like pear pudding. But you know what?"

"Something vaguely optimistic and unrealistic?" Sweet rads, twenty minutes ago he had a mac n' cheese and now he's starving again. That Super Mutant had known precisely what he was talking about.

"No. Not even that we'd take a lot of ghosts along if we went down, though you know we would." Benny breathes on the newly polished blade, grunts in a satisfied kind of way. "But put it this way. The Sierra was supposed to be the most spectacular casino east of what's now the NCR, you sass?"

Never in his life have two bottles of dirty water looked so lifesaving. "So?"

Benny flicks the knife through the air, stands up. "Therefore, it is my goddamn duty to see the hell blown out of this operation before it can compete with the Tops. Now that's a much sounder promise than mealy-mouthed 'let's skip home and pick broc flowers', right?"

"You're an incorrigible bastard."

"Like anyone else would get out of this alive," Benny says, loading the 9mm pistol; and it's hard to disagree.


	2. Begin again

  
It's very difficult for him to keep a straight face, despite the severity of the situation. 

After all, getting kidnapped by one Mojave faction is bad luck, but to have it happen twice…Benny sips at his atomic cocktail, ponders the bald woman before him who has handed him a sheet of paper and said nothing.

She wants Arcade, of course. The note doesn't say why.

"Look," Benny says, in an even voice that still carries too much in the Big Horn's dead hush (Tommy doesn't want him around the Tops these days unless he's playing to the crowd, which is fine but forces him to less salubrious drinking holes). "I'm a socialite, a one-two-three potato, I look anyone I'm going to shoot in the eye, you dig? Betrayal over the wire is off the hook. I can't agree to this without knowing a little more about who your boss is and why he wants Arcade."

She closes her mouth into a hard line, opens it again, takes another gulp of purified water as though she's just staggered in from the dry lake. Who knows. He'd arrived early for this meeting, but not soon enough to catch her arrival.

"A name. A destination. Anything?"

She considers. Relaxes her fist into an open palm, places his hand in it for a moment; then jerks hers away sharply.

Take it or leave it.

Benny raises his eyes to the tall, quiet NCR soldier drinking Nuka-Cola in the corner, gets an incredibly unhelpful glare back. It's getting through to him that Arcade has trouble manifesting any kind of positive decision making off his own bat, vastly prefers to find a cause and throw his considerable intellect at it without thinking through the consequences to himself. Stupid Enclave training.

Well. Left up to him, it might as well be Strip rules, and those say that the only way to treat blackmail is to sell out for good or slaughter the enemy. Once you know who that is.

"Fine," Benny says in a bored tone. "How much will you pay for him?"

He's not actually aware of the rest of it, the whirlwind of violence, the uncertainty as to who actually caught that poor saloon keeper in the crossfire, the long tiresome journey, due to being knocked unconscious and then drugged. Arcade has to explain it, once he wakes up to find they're trapped in the Sierra Madre.

"She said...I mean, she didn't say. She communicated that she couldn't think of a better fate for a slave trader than bringing him here, and I said that there had been a mistake or two there, and she wants you to know she's sorry. Apparently it was just me she was supposed to bring, not both of us."

"Oh. Great. Is it too late for me to go home?"

But by then, they're already equipped with explosive collars; and Father Elijah holds then fast.


	3. You know you're gonna lose more than you've found

There's a depth of sleep when the body overrides the mind, holding it in dreams despite best efforts; and right now, Arcade knows he's not exactly trying his hardest.

There's a bone-deep exhaustion in his limbs as he swims along, a hundred feet above the Colorado River as though air was the water below. He feels heavy, but the dusty breeze is heavier still, he won't fall.

"Somewhere close by now," Benny says, floating besides him. Sunlight flashes off a stray sequin, the tip of a polished shoe, as he unfolds a pool cue and pries open a grate with it.

They flutter inside and Benny lands with a graceful thump, but Arcade can't remember how to do that. Stays fragile, weightless to the touch.

"Thesis, antithesis, synthesis," Caesar intones, from his throne of burned books. "Who's your martyr, hustler?"

"Faithful follower." Benny's tapping the walls, the floor, the newly-blank ceiling with his cue. Hunting a holy mystery. "One sacrifice is always worth an empire- but you'd know about that without my repeating it, wouldn't you? Twice-dead, is that condolences or congratulations?"

Caesar nods, rises, bows deeply. Turns to grasp Arcade, in a hold stiff and rank with corruption-

he wakes up to find a ghost trying to slice the life out of him.

One shot with the holorifle, two, a third coming perilously close to ripping off his lover's chin instead of the ghost's arm; but Arcade makes it. A sure, permanent death. His father would be proud.

Arcade takes a moment to get his breath back, contemplating how he would gladly swap any amount of fraternal pride right now for two tickets out of here. Or a cot that doesn't smell of a hundred others' sweat and tears. Or a boyfriend without a hole in him, really.

"Benny, are you okay?"

"...about all I can say is, at least you're not asking a corpse that question."

Which is typical enough black humor from him, and also doesn't stop Arcade shuddering as he swaps places with Benny, starts to clean a jagged shoulder wound with dirty water. It's lucky he's been to Freeside, trained with Julie; if he was relying on NCR university training to help here, he'd have given up already.

"Cupcake...I need a nap."

"It's not like I have any Med-X to ease this for you."

"Oh good," Benny mumbles incoherently. Rolls over and goes to sleep as though they were back home in New Vegas.

Not a great idea. The way this cloud moves, shimmering and bleeding, Arcade isn't altogether sure this police station's stolidity will hold out against it. 

But his lover looks peaceful like that, carelessly relaxed even under the harsh battery light, and the whispers of ghosts outside; and he hasn't the heart to wake him.


	4. These lonely days go on and on

"Listen," Benny is saying, with a voice smooth as piano ivory. "When we get back to the Tops, Dean, you can write your own ticket. I guarantee it."

Arcade can't help thinking it's beyond preposterous. Trapped in the middle of an irradiated plague hole is the first time that he's had a chance to see Benny in all his glory as a sleazy Strip promoter, which is proving...an experience. Under normal circumstances, he has sat up nights wondering if he actually would want to be on speaking terms with that person. If their relationship can survive being freed from the chains of war and mutual need.

At the moment, mouth dry and his thigh aching from a prickly mess of wires, he's so in love with said reprobate it hurts. How Father Elijah expected they would handle someone who started the introductions with a death threat is beyond him.

"You're not just saying that to con me into an exclusive contract?" Dean is purring, a ridiculous sound from anybody whether or not they're a ghoul. "It has been known…"

"Baby. Honeysmacker, when we hit New Vegas you'll see there isn't anywhere better for you! Gomorrah for the whores, the Ultra-Luxe for nibbles, but entertainment, everybody knows the Tops is the only joint in town. A theater, an honest pre-war beauty that we polished up spick and span." Benny leans his weight against a bookcase stuffed with posters, studies the one in his hand admiringly. "Oh, this is a beauty- that signature! You know what, I've had a little notion rattling around in my cranium, a real twirly marble, selling packs of autographed Caravan cards…"

Arcade coughs, discretely.

"Oh, I'd forgot you were there," Dean says. "What do you want?"

"He's the muscle," Benny says dismissively. "Helps to have someone like him along on my talent scouting, you should see what he can do with a plasma caster. Probably he still thinks you're planning to launch his bottom to the moon!"

He laughs. Dean laughs. Arcade grits his teeth and tries to look terse.

"Never mind it," Dean says, actually slapping the back of his jumpsuit. "A little joke among friends...get up, have some wine, make sure and keep the ghosts out. We two have some serious business to discuss."

Arcade nods, hesitantly swipes a water and a box of ready mash from the oh-so-tempting suitcase stash. Dean smiles at him indulgently.

It takes two hours before an exasperated Father Elijah calls to ask what's holding them up, and he's a trifle grateful for that gravelly voice. 

Just this once.


	5. And never brought to mind

"With four of you, Dog can be left behind. You won't need him," Father Elijah had ordered.

This is a stupid risk he's taking. There is no knowing what kind of proximity alerts these collars might have, eavesdropping, monitoring. He might be taking his life in his hands doing this.

Benny is aware he's drunk on ancient scotch, and entirely prepared to use this knowledge as a cudgel should it be needed; or as a ballast, if he should fail. There was a man who shot a courier who wouldn't have taken the risk; but he hadn't been imprisoned in a slave camp.

Damn this. He'll have to stop and get an adrenaline shot, in lieu of the sleep he's missing now. Exhaustion is making him see shapes in the cloud, a flower here, a sunhat there.

There are literally innumerable Super Mutants in the world. The chance of this one being the one he wants are negligible as getting a decent game of craps in Freeside.

He stumbles onwards, sticking to the walls as much as he can; it seems to help when the cloud comes. At least Dean's watching Arcade right now. More trustworthy than Christine, no question.

This whole proposition, it comes down to pride, the kind of pride he can't afford as the Strip's only intelligence wrangler. The kind of stubborn pride that makes him bother to stay out in the field at all, instead of sitting on his ass drinking cocktails in Vegas.

Three ghosts, leaping in their weird violence- it's like dances, a peculiar beauty in the leaps. He runs silently and swiftly, and they don't even see him. 

The clinic is coming up. Benny slips inside, follows the sound of weeping to the Auto-Docs, where the Super Mutant is pounding his head against some complex piece of machinery that is clearly far too small to help him.

"Helloexcusemeisyournamejimmyorbecky."

Lily had talked about them, and saved his life from nightstalkers three times over the course of the conversation; and he owes her to ask the question. 

"My name is God," the Super Mutant says flatly.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry."

They stare at each other for a little while.

"Say, you wouldn't be interested in going on a heist, would you?"


	6. Crossing you in style

Everything about Christine makes Arcade hurt to look at.

Not all of his concern is even appropriate. The bald head for instance, she seems to genuinely enjoy that, having pantomined a pun about Brotherhood hoods that he still isn't quite sure he grasped. She uses a clean cosmic knife to razor away the slightest fuzz.

It reminds him of a courier who'd had will like hers, and that hurts too.

Consent, relief, do no harm. In the Mojave he wouldn't think of treating anyone with scars this deep except on a battlefield trauma basis; it's beyond his medical skill. Here, with only a handful of chems and not even a clean hospital bed, even trying would be preposterous.

Besides, she's strong. Stronger than he or Benny, apt with any stray weapon readily to hand or none at all, not a bit slowed for all her surgeries, he suspects. Perfectly adapted to her environment. 

Maybe this is what the future will look like; and maybe it shouldn't be, maybe she hates every moment of her existence, maybe his Enclave-addled brain should just shut up, stop questioning where the line of undue suffering should be drawn. He's a doctor. All he needs to do is support life, if it isn't actively trying to kill him.

That thought carries him through their uneasy partnership, right up to the point where an elevator comes into things.

"Is it unsafe? A trap?"

The quick slash means no. 

"Do you want me to go down?"

She steps back, shrugs indifferently. 

Arcade dials it open, studies its trim closeness. Touches it lightly.

Christine nods, almost eagerly.

He sets one foot inside, stops. Whatever is down there- whatever it is that this unbreakable, indomitable woman is afraid of, the fear of it tightens around him like Legion ropes. As little time as they've been here, as protected as he's been, this place just keeps throwing new horrors at him and they won't let up until something happens. Benny will get caught in a bear trap. They'll lose their way in a cloud and be dragged away by dead hands.

He'll be shoved into this elevator by the kidnapper who can't even tell him why he's here. 

Arcade sinks to the ground, slowly, feels a faint kick of surprise when Christine kneels down next to him. It's quiet in the switching station, but she must feel physically secure at least to risk her mobility that way.

Maybe he should shoot her while he has the chance, his brain helpfully suggests.

Oddly, it's the part of him trained for combat that discards that notion; the prospect of trying to fight his way back to the fountain alone is intolerable. To abduct him implies a safe delivery, at least.

"....okay. You don't want to go in the elevator. I don't want to go in the elevator. Where does that leave us?"

Christine looks around, points at the nearby console. A frustrated expression crosses her face, quickly replaced by sadness.

There's a story about how her writing was taken away, possibly due to a courier he has an uneasy feeling he knows, and if it's true it's obscene. He settles in at the desk, stares at it blankly, and sets to typing.

Twenty minutes later he's cursing that he's here and not in the Mojave where they sell things like reference magazines. And glasses. There are a frankly alarming number of them around the place but none with the custom anti-glare coating he springs for, this is already giving him a headache.

"We could just give up, I suppose," he says in exhaustion. "Two hundred years...even if we run through the checklist, what odds that it'll even work the way Father Elijah hopes? Could be this is all for nothing. That we'll never get out of here, running from ghosts and skulking. Drinking those horrifying cocktails of Dean's- oh, fuck, I can't believe that typing gibberish actually worked-"

Just because she can't talk doesn't mean Christine can't laugh, it turns out. That kind of shake, the intake of breath, nothing else it can be.

"Oh, so you think I'm being silly now? Feeling sorry for myself?"

An unmistakable nod.

"Maybe you're right. I suppose- have you been in love?"

To his surprise, Christine nods again, quickly and urgently. She cups her hands like a chemistry beaker, a visual gag- still. Duration.

A hunch, but how many holds can there be on a woman like her. "Was it to get him out of here, that you kidnapped me?"

A small secretive look. 

"Oh! Her?"

She agrees that time.

"Okay. Then I...I won't blame you for doing what you did to stop that. If I can help you, I will. I just think you should know," Arcade says, afraid of how little mercy is left in his voice. "If Benny ends up caught in the middle, don't think I won't fight just as hard for my lover, as you would for yours. Just so we understand each other."

She considers, extends her hand. 

The shake is unyielding, but not harsh. 


	7. Find the sun and walk

They can't stay in this bell tower forever. God will get hungry again, Dean impatient, Christine can't wait indefinitely at her computer.

But right now they're high and safe, above the unbreathable cloud and ghosts, and neither of them are ready just yet to go back to that.

Benny sticks his tongue out as he runs through a sequence of metrics, depowers his Pip-Boy just to annoy Elijah. There isn't supposed to be a way to do that; but he wasn't Robert House's protege for nothing.

It's not quite an ache, thinking of the man's death. More like fear.

"So tell me, what did Veronica let slip about the Brotherhood? I never had the benefit of travelling with a Scribe."

"Well…cagy about it. As you might expect." Arcade, unusually, has cracked open a pack of cigarettes. "They don't want outsiders, they're dug into Hidden Valley, she was soft on someone who might be the very same person who showed you that trick with the fission batteries. Do you have a light?"

"Fucking Khans pickpocketed me, I think...I mean, not that it would matter right now." Benny fumbles in the makeshift sack he's fashioned from a pre-war suit, same way he was taught as a Boot Rider. A pilot light, that'll do the trick. "What's up? Smoking's usually my vice, not yours."

Arcade looks briefly annoyed, then conciliatory as he starts sucking in tobacco fumes. "A distraction. We haven't got enough Med-X to waste just on keeping me calm if we aren't fighting."

"You saying you got the shakes?" Damn it. That slightly concussed look, sweating, he'd written it off as too much running amuck with a limb chopper. Lucky that one of them can handle melee. "Can I help?"

"I'll manage. Jacob Hoff was very proud of how he powered past it, he said this and willpower got him through cold."

Benny leans in, lights his own cigarette from the flame of Arcade's. "Two blocks away from the Mormon Fort with a stack of Followers ready to help?"

"Don't be sympathetic," Arcade snaps. He has to stop for a moment then, to cough smoke out. Benny finds that keeping his mouth straight is right up there for difficulty with not calling Father Elijah any of the eclectic slurs currently hip in New Vegas, but he achieves it somehow.

Which doesn't help much. Stripped of comedy, all that's left is his lover trying to paper over frantic hurt and that isn't easy to watch.

(He remembers being a kid, eight or ten, thinking that anyone who took on a wife or husband was just giving Lady Luck a ready sacrifice. Not so sure that was wrong.)

"These cigarettes stink, though," Benny says eventually. "When we get back I'll have you try the Westside Lights, that's a savvy mellow taste and isn't two hundred years old...oh, that reminds me. Tell that idiot Anderson to cover his tracks better next time he wants a go at murdering a Ranger."

Arcade's shifty expression is at least a change from strained self-reproach, that's a relief. "What makes you think I know anything about that?"

"I don't, but you're a Follower, he ought to listen to you. That kind of thing is bad for business. I only let it slide because the co-op there has better baccy than sharecropper product. Less of that radioactive tang." He helps Arcade light another smoke, unsubtly using the opportunity to cop a feel of warm broad hands. Also to see how bad the kick is- could be more worrying, he's seen gamblers in worse straits stagger around the Strip for hours.

Of course that's the Strip, and not this forsaken pleasure spot.

"Sure you can handle the excitement? Dean's sure we're gonna have a ghost crush that'll put NCR Signing Day to shame, crowd wise."

Arcade pulls a face, stubs the cigarette out. "Better than I can face another one of those. As Daisy likes to say, let's blow this pop stand."

The man must be feeling a little better to risk an Enclave mention, or at least a little looser. "What in the- what kind of expression is that?"

"Why, you think New Vegas has a monopoly on inventing silly phrases?"


	8. All that's left is loneliness

They've been close to death so often now that it's almost hard to believe in; but sweet rads, not like this. Not in this sunless horror.

Arcade staggers through the cafe door with relief. Benny's unconscious from a wild attempt to throw a gas bomb back on its instigator, a maneuver that had only worked insofar as everyone else had ended up dead. Without the charred police armor, his lover would have been too.

His shoulders don't half hurt, from carrying Benny in here.

"Help?"

The soft blue hologram says nothing, does nothing. Arcade resists the impulse to throw a brick through it and starts stripping his lover, counting on ingrained Follower habit to carry him through the medical treatments.

That works, more or less; a precious doctor's bag, an expired stimpak, the last of the dirty water from one of Dean's stashes. It's not a real treatment, but it'll patch Benny together enough for them to stagger down to the clinic. No matter what Christine had- or hadn't- to say about the Auto-Docs there, it's a chance. That skull fracture can't be left to fester.

Maybe if they search more thoroughly, they can get some Med-X too. There's only a dose left and he's determined to save that for as long as possible-

caught up in the whirlwind, it honestly comes as a mild surprise when his body gives out and leaves him collapsed next to Benny.

"Chem shock," Arcade says aloud to the ceiling, mostly to keep himself awake. They can't both be unconscious at the same time, not here, not now. "That's enough to account for the blurred vision, although whether that's withdrawal or just normal aftereffect…" The sentence gets away from him. He rests the side of his face against the ground, willing the cold tile to prod him into movement. "I need treatment."

The hologram is offering a stimpak for a ridiculous price, but junk food for rather less; the hollow under his ribs loudly argues for attention. He slides the Pip-Boy off Benny's arm- there's a lot of junk lying around the cafe, enough to scrounge up a snack maybe, but without electronics he can't tell what's been tagged as owned. Last thing they need is getting shot by an unkillable hologram for swiping an ashtray.

There's a password protection on the device. Is that normal? He hasn't known enough Vault dwellers to be certain.

_Hint: middle name._

That's a stumper, Benny never said he had one. Boot? Riders? Boot riders?

All three come out wrong. Arcade switches off the device, reboots it, realises with tired amusement that Benny wouldn't need a reminder of his own name. It's meant for him.

 _Israel_.

He chuckles in relief as the Pip-Boy obediently flickers on. A little buggy- no way is his exhaustion at zero, that's ridiculous- but the anti-theft subroutine is working. When he picks up a still-sealed tin the hologram doesn't try to murder him with laser beams.

Curious, and needing a distraction from cold beans drenched in lard, he starts fiddling with the thing. Anything marked personal he'll skip, but it's just as well to be more familiar with the system. At the very least, a map showing the way back to the medical clinic would be a huge help.

There is one. It's incomprehensible.

An hour later, he's found out how to play Tetris on a Pip-Boy, eaten every edible thing in the cafe, discovered a truly horrendous series of recordings of "Big Iron" from Aces auditions, and is back to feeling something like normal again. Benny's shifted from labored breathing to more familiar snores. Just as well, the rest will do him good.

Arcade is patting him a trifle, comforted by the steady thump-thump of a warm pulse, when there's a clank upstairs that cannot be anything but active power armor.

Maybe Elijah's found a way to get Christine a suit, he wouldn't put it past either of them, but- he wakes Benny quickly, with the hand-over-mouth gesture that's the universal Mojave signal to keep quiet. Benny doesn't need telling twice, just unholsters the 9mm pistol he's favoring and waits in a verisimilitude of unconsciousness.

Clank, clank. Clank.

"Veronica!"

Relieved disbelief runs through him, chased by fear. "How'd you get here? Is the Courier with you?"

"Same way you did, Christine led me here. The Courier is back in the Mojave...she isn't coming. Turns out a shared love of punching won't solve all disagreements in life, who would have guessed?"

"I mean. After she sold me as a slave to Caesar, of all people, I can well believe that you'd have some interpersonal difficulties with her."

Veronica frowns, then unexpectedly laughs. "Huh! Now that's a solution I wouldn't have thought of, but it's almost brilliant. Put an Enclave doctor to work in the Legion, he can't get up to any technological shenanigans."

So she knows about that. There's more hurt in her eyes than seems fair to him, but it's of a sort he's always been resigned to accept, the rage of misgiven trust. "I was only a kid when Navarro fell. I know that wouldn't mean much to others, but- if I tell you I was never a part of their war efforts, would you believe me?"

"Sure."

Well. That's refreshingly unexpected.

"And if you'd given me one word, a hint of trust, maybe we wouldn't be in this position! If I could have shown Elder McNamara real Enclave technology, maybe he would have believed me instead of staring me down whenever I tried persuading him. Maybe I wouldn't have needed to sell my old mentor my soul just to keep my family safe…" 

The scene is painfully incongruous. Flickering light, a power armor suit that could blast him across the Sierra Madre, and at the middle of it all a woman using her scribal hood as a handkerchief. Tears are trickling down her face.

Baffled, Arcade moves cautiously towards her, offers his hands to her power fist. She lets him take it, cold metal heavy in his grasp.

Stirs childhood memories of Daisy clad like this, promising to keep him safe.

"Veronica. What's going on?"

She sniffles, looks him straight in the eye. "I couldn't get the Elder to listen to me, so...I had a friend of mine look up references to reinstating an old one. Christine told me Father Elijah was here, after that it was smooth sailing with the Codex. And the Courier said, if we didn't evacuate Hidden Valley she'd blow the bunker to ashes. Evacuating to the Sierra Madre seemed like the only path forward."

"And Christine lied to you about what was here? The cloud, ghost people, everything? What was she thinking?"

"She made Father Elijah promise we could be together," Veronica says, outright sobbing now. "My whole family is here now, trapped with bomb collars- Arcade, what have I done?"

Anything he might say- any reproach he could make, all fails in the wake of a single moment he remembers with knife-sharp clarity. Wondering not whether but how he might submit to Caesar, how to incorporate the Remnants' tired old age to Legion battle plans.

The only difference between them is that he'd had an outsider, cool-headed enough to suggest hope was still a chance; and Veronica, caught up in the Brotherhood's tangled love and foibles, hadn't even had that to keep her sane.

"I forgive you," Arcade says softly; partly because it's what he'd need to hear in this situation.

Partly because the cold, angry part of him can trust that Benny won't.


	9. Never get out of my sight

Six. Four. Two.

"Hit me."

Nine. Another twenty-one. His rapt audience claps yet again.

That's them being polite, on request. A group of Paladins staring at him in utter silence had definitely been worse.

Benny wonders for about the hundredth time, as the hologram counts out chips, whether he's here because the Brotherhood has some taboo about gambling or if they're just so damn unlucky they don't have anybody else capable of beating the house on card-counting. Could be both.

They've patched him up with the unending supply of doctor's bags and stimpaks from his winnings, dragged in an auto-doc to give him adrenaline shots, an infinite amount of booze is at his beck and call. All he has to do is sit here and play cards.

If he didn't know Arcade was rattling around the casino somewhere, he'd stick the muzzle of this pistol in his mouth and let them all starve to death. 

Nine. Ace. Stay. Another two hundred chips.

Someone tucks a neat scotch in the crook of his arm; he looks up to see his lover, unfamiliar in a trim black assassin suit. "Hey...uh."

"Cupcake," Arcade supplies. Looks like it just about kills him to say it. "You look horrible. I'm taking you upstairs to get some rest."

"He's needed here to provide supplies," one of the paladins says. "Knight-General Christine made that perfectly clear."

"I'm not taking him forever, or even out of the casino. But I am a doctor and if I say he needs rest, he needs rest. You don't want him disoriented enough to start losing, do you?"

The paladins confer among themselves, shake their heads. "We'll allow you to bring a cot in, but he doesn't leave this room."

Arcade grimaces, unholsters a weapon. "You see this? Ever wanted to know what kind of last-ditch weaponry the Enclave invented to take down power armor?"

Fifteen seconds later they're out of there, with Arcade hurrying him up a staircase.

"What was that?" Benny asks in a whisper.

"Frying pan handle with a conductor taped to it." Arcade's laughing a little as they run, sounding more terrified than Benny's ever heard him.

"You sure you aren't cut out for card games?"

"I'm sure."

***

Vera Keyes' suite is spacious, untouched, if one doesn't count the skeleton in the corner and blood on the carpet. Even as is, Benny thinks, given a crack at that bed he'd sleep and sleep forever.

"I'm surprised Christine didn't set up in here," Arcade says, looking around.

Father Elijah smiles mirthlessly. "Rank hath its privileges...besides which, she's aware of her new voice being the key to that vault. This is where you two come in. Get her here, get her to open it, I'll reward you beyond your wildest wishes."

"Why doesn't she want to open it?"

"The same caution that held my erstwhile replacement back, that has hobbled the Brotherhood for so long. She's content merely to hold the technology in her grasp, untouched. Outrageous. So many secrets, just waiting to be revealed."

"Is it just me," Benny asks, "or are you two having a power play dispute?"

Elijah runs a hand along the rim of a bomb collar. A sight he's almost come to take for granted, Benny realises with an unpleasant shock. 

"You could say that. She has my death in her keeping, and visa versa...we'll have to be subtle about this, you see. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life grinding out chips in the casino downstairs?"

"Absolutely not," Arcade says, before Benny can even process the baleful thought. "So that's the deal, then? You get your vault, you help us run the gauntlet of Paladins and get home to the Mojave?"

"I can assure you," Father Elijah says. "I want you outsiders around no longer than necessary."

"Then we'll do it."

Somebody should, Benny decides, point out to Arcade that he's being too needy, desperate, needs to stop and look at the variables before they get committed to any indiscretions; but not in front of Father Elijah.

Besides. There isn't enough rage in the world, to express his thoughts about a woman who's forced Arcade to use his Enclave background as a weapon.


	10. But that dream got kicked in the head

"So, you finally got your dress." Arcade clears his throat, a touch awkwardly.

Veronica isn't looking at him, instead staring out the casino window at the clouds beneath. This time of day it's very nearly possible to believe it's just the sunset dying out there. "Yeah. It's Vera's, Christine says- not the one she died in. A spare."

"Ah. That's…thoughtful, I suppose." She doesn't look right, stripped of her pneumatic gauntlet and blood-ravaged burlap. A wistful princess, not the confident warrior who accompanied the Mojave's most dangerous warlord.

"I still can't believe she did it. Christine, I mean. Everything she told me she wanted to do, she's done…" Veronica's grin now, that's almost like her. "I always loved her determination. Love."

"You're sure about that?"

"By the Codex, yes! I missed her so, so much...and we have what we wanted now. All of it. Happy ending, I guess."

"Enforced with bomb collars and the threat of sudden death, of course."

Veronica's shrug isn't rueful, it's indifferent. "I've thought about it, and you know what? It's not so much worse than us all being crammed in Hidden Valley, only a handful of people being allowed in or out. At least here we can all look at the stars and feel safe. Nobody will ever touch us here."

Arcade considers that. Bites down several possible comments.

"So maybe you want to stay here too. There can't be much left in the Mojave for an Enclave fugitive. I'll talk to Father Elijah about it, you can be a doctor just like you were in Freeside."

"Thank you, and also, no thank you. Benny's got a casino he needs to get back to, and I'm going with him."

"You always made fun of the Strip. What's New Vegas got that isn't right here- is it family? I won't pry," she says quickly. "But if you want to bring anyone here, as long as they can be counted on to stay and not betray us, we could send out a group of Paladins to fetch them."

Arcade rubs the back of his neck. "I can safely say there isn't anyone I care about who I'd bring to this place."

They look out the window together. Far below, a Brotherhood quartet fights off a pack of leaping ghosts, before disappearing into the cloud.

"I guess I can't argue with that," Veronica says eventually.

***

"I want to go home to the Mojave."

"No problems there," Christine says. She's set up shop in the casino's laundry room of all places, with a computer and workshop at her command. Her polished Brotherhood armor is stacked next to shelves of neat scrap metal. "For an Enclave survivor to have reached your age, you must be fairly discreet. And I won't object to the Followers having knowledge of our facilities, once the Hoover Dam situation is resolved one way or the other."

"I also want Benny to come with me." 

"Absolutely not," Christine says without hesitating. "Until we can reverse-engineer those vending machines, he's the only guaranteed way I have of keeping this entire chapter supplied. That is much too precarious a position to let him go for mere sentiment- if I had time to have invented a better plan, I wouldn't have involved an outsider. There simply wasn't opportunity, what with that courier gumming up the works."

"Father Elijah says that he can do that easily enough, if you let him open the vault."

Christine slaps down the schematics she's working on, hard. "And you trust him? The man who first broke this chapter's back by holding out for a pointless last stand at Helios One? A sociopath with no sense of conscience? I'd trust a dog sooner than him. Whatever's in that vault stays there until he's dead."

"But you seem content to let him stay elder."

"I did not have the authority to order the Hidden Valley evacuation by myself," Christine says, sucking on a grease pencil. "Gannon, look. I did what I needed to stop a wholesale genocide, and if you two are casualties, so be it. Don't make me decide you have to be dead as well. The stakes I'm playing for are too high for regret."

Arcade nods. Holds tightly to a memory of lazing in the Mojave with Benny, chewing yucca under a blazing desert morning.

If he gets himself killed now, he can't maneuver them back home; which seems like the only important thought in the world anymore.

***  
This is how he finds himself back out in the villa, trading barbs with a very sulky Dean Domino.

"Still wearing your collar, I see? Run along now, there's a good little lapdog."

"We need to talk," Arcade says, gasping unsteadily. There had been a few too many ghosts en route for comfort.

"So talk! Exhaust your unimpressive repertoire, I'm sure you'll run out of words eventually."

"You still want to break into Sinclair's vault, don't you?"

Dean snorts. "After waiting two hundred years for my chance, do you think a mere battalion of armored upstarts would dampen my enthusiasm in the slightest?"

"Okay then. Look- I want out, Benny wants out, but you'll never get to play the Aces if we don't think up a plan. Father Elijah says he'll give us safe passage out if we help him break in."

"And you actually believe him? The man who had these collars put around our necks?"

"... at least he wants to get in. That's more than you can say for Christine."

Dean actually stops loading a pistol, to give him a thoughtful once-over. "Hmm. You may have a point there."

"Hoorah," Arcade says, more sardonically than he meant. "Look. What did you actually want from this heist, money? Sinclair's schematics? What?"

The ghoul blinks at him, wheezes in amusement. "Satisfaction, my boy, that's all. Pure satisfaction. Knowing that I've put the great Sinclair's crowed precautions to the lie, that's all I wanted."

"...that's all?"

"Well. I wouldn't say no to a couple of gold bars, but mainly it's the principle of the thing."

If he ever, ever gets back to his boring tent in Freeside and his boring plant research and waving at the Kings members on their way to go beat up thugs, Arcade decides, he will never complain about it again. "Then, uh, I don't think we have anything to disagree about. Father Elijah wants Sinclair's schematics, Benny and I want to go home, you just want to get in the vault. I think we can all be happy if we can just figure out how to do it."

"Knight-General Christine unfortunately refuses to comply with my original plan, which was to have her use her delicious new voice to open the vault."

"And that's the only way in?"

"Oh, of course not! A recording would do just as well, if you can obtain one. I simply didn't have the resources of those useful Pip-Boy instruments available to me when I evolved that part of the plan, so she's now barred me from the casino with extreme prejudice."

Blood doesn't run cold. That's not how physiology works.

Doesn't stop Arcade feeling a chill, all the same.

***

Two days, one Stealth Boy, and a couple of voiceprints later, the four of them are standing in front of an open elevator.

"Who's going first?" Benny asks.

"I had best remain here until you find your way to the Vault proper," Father Elijah says. "The Brotherhood is in near constant need of my guidance, my extended absence would be missed."

Benny manages to resurrect a bit of spark from somewhere. "Damn it, back in the Mojave I'd have minions for this. Grunt work isn't my speciality these days."

"I believe the expression goes, tough cookies," Dean says. "Have a good trip. If you survive, I'll be waiting by the Villa gate for a few days- and now I really must dash, before this remarkable device wears off. Ta-ta!"

Arcade wearily loads up the holorifle. "Two down, two to go- I hate this thing. It doesn't feel right in my hands."

"Remember who built it," Father Elijah says dangerously.

"You know, one of the reasons the Enclave clung on for so long, in the face of increasingly ridiculous odds, is that they looked at a future of squabbling tinpot dictators and said 'actually, we'd rather not be a part of all this-"

Benny slaps him. 

"....uhm. Thank you? I think."

"You should be," Father Elijah says, his gruff voice very cool. "A little gratitude wouldn't come amiss."

That has absolutely nothing to do with Benny's reasoning, but never mind.

Goddamn it, they need to get out of here.


	11. Love me tender

"Please stop panicking like a bull on a bender," Benny says, watching his lover tug frantically at a solid steel door. "You'll just wear yourself out."

"Does this not look like a death trap to you? We have to get out of here!"

"I mean, if it is we can afford to give it some time before confirming that." He stretches out luxuriously, leans his head back on a pillow of prewar money. Gold bars are far too heavy to fondle appreciatively, which doesn't stop him doing it. "Face it, it's been all go for too long. Take a minute. Breathe. We have a vending machine, a steel door protecting us, and I for one fully deserve a break before we get on with deciding if we're going to annihilate the Brotherhood."

Arcade squats down besides him, not looking best pleased. "What do you mean?"

"Oh. You still on that Med-X jag? I mean, Christine is right, we probably are dooming their little group if I leave."

"...Father Elijah doesn't seem worried," Arcade says, his face crinkling. It's cute when he does that.

"Father Elijah probably wouldn't care if the sun imploded, if it didn't interfere with his tech research. You're a good judge of character, would you normally belt out anybody like you did up there?"

"I'm a terrible judge of character," Arcade says, noticeably uncomfortable now. "Otherwise I would have noticed that courier was another Caesar in the making."

Benny winces. That would be a sore point.

"But I see what you're getting at, I suppose...can we just send them a few lucky gamblers? You must know a few."

"Sure, no question. And maybe I would have," Benny says, letting a satisfying umpty-ump into his voice, "if anyone had, you know, asked. Or cared about my opinion. As it stands this is actually a step below the Legion camp- at least I could see the sky, then! Hatch stupid plans about getting ransomed! This is ridiculous...and you know what?"

"Do I want to know?"

"One of the tasks on my to-do list for Mr House was to wipe out this lot of chuckleheads, and now it looks like I'll be able to do that just by leaving town. So tell me," Benny says, gently feeling the inflamed skin on his lover's neck. "Should I stay or should I go now?"

"You know, when you made noises about relaxing, I was hoping for a couple of good fucks. Not this week's episode of Mojave moral dilemmas."

"Oh. Well, that isn't off the table-"

"I can't think about sex and people dying simultaneously," Arcade says, abruptly pulling himself upright and out of reach. "Sorry! A silly little quirk of mine, I suppose."

Benny sighs, sits up too, but he knows better than to try touching Arcade in this mood. "So you want me to devote my life to saving these assholes?"

"...no," Arcade admits, after a long pause. "Not just because it's you. That's an appalling position for them to have put you in, and I can't blame you for wanting out."

"So what is your solution in the best of all possible worlds?"

"In that world we wouldn't even be in this mess." Arcade reaches out, runs a playful hand through his hair. "Can we forget about all this for now and go back to the 'fuck each other senseless on worthless currency' part of the plan?"

"Done and done, cupcake."

***

"Ummm. That was good….thanks, I needed that."

"Think we both did." Benny extracts a bill from a stack, lights it, uses it for his cigarette. Money to burn is an old-fashioned expression, but it's still fun. "Nice touch with the Rad-Away, I wouldn't have thought of using it for that."

"Being a Freeside doctor confers some interesting knowhow."

"I'll say." He offers Arcade another cigarette, watches with private glee as the doctor inhales smoke. "Care for another lap any time soon?"

"Not unless you promise," and Arcade is giggling now, that light laugh he seems so shy to use in public. "Not unless you swear, this time you're not going to shout ring-a-ding at the critical moment-"

"Aw, lemme have my little pleasures. Unless, you know, it enhances the thing- hey. Are you the gag type? Can't say I have one on me, but we can improvise-"

A deep, resonant knocking comes on the vault door.

They swap startled looks, clamber back into outfits. Arcade fumbles with the obvious door console, which surprisingly actually works.

"Oh! Hello, Veronica. We broke into the vault. You probably guessed that."

"I've got good news and bad news," Veronica says, wielding a wrench. "The good news is, you're free to go. I'll get those collars off you two in a jiffy."

"What- how- thanks. I suppose Father Elijah is coming down now?"

"He should be." She clicks off Arcade's collar, hands him a packet of ointment. "Rub that in where it hurts, it'll help."

"What's the bad news?" Benny asks tersely.

Veronica reddens somewhat. "Arcade, promise you won't get mad and throw things."

"I don't throw things. I try not to get that mad, even- do you think I'm that kind of person?"

"This isn't exactly a regular- look, I pranked you. I'm sorry. You know how Father Elijah was able to talk to you through the collars? It can be made to work the other way too." Veronica's speaking very quickly now, as she pries off the second collar and throws it aside. "I may have, uh, broadcast what you've been saying for the last half-hour."

"...to whom?" Arcade demands, folding his arms in an extremely outraged way that Benny can't help finding highly attractive.

"The entire Brotherhood? Because everyone else is wearing the collars too, I just put it over the network. After ten minutes we had what was maybe the fastest meeting in the chapter's history and everyone agreed that you could go, right away, and best wishes but they really, really hope never to see or hear from you two ever again." She looks up at them, shrugs with a sheepish grin. "Also, uh, I've been demoted back to procurement specialist. Got a lot of fission battery salvage in my future."

"I'm not at all sure I'm grateful," Arcade splutters, going a charming shade of outraged pink.

"I am," Benny interjects. "I'd kiss you if you swung that way, dumpling, but one question. Are we still live?" 

Veronica nods.

"Okay then. Listen up, everybody! My casino's better than your casino, you pack of no-good mpth-mmms-"

Arcade has to bodily muffle him, to stop the end of that sentence.

***

When they get back upstairs, thirty seven gold bars heavier and none the wiser about Sinclair's schematics, there's a Super Mutant sitting in a pool of blood, calmly eating a human arm like a steak.

"Don't make me kill you," he says, rather affably.

Veronica raises her fist, the one Arcade's seen her use to punch the heads off things. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you, you- utter bastard."

"He tricked me into eating a slave collar to control me body and soul," God says mildly. "I took advantage of the radio confusion to make clear my feelings on the matter."

Veronica sucks air through her teeth, kneels down by her deceased mentor. "This...is not going to be easy to explain. Get out, all three of you. Now."

Benny scuttles to the door, God swallows a scrap of skin and moves. Arcade lingers a moment. 

"Veronica. Are you going to be okay? Here?"

She puts up her chin, fierce and defiant. "I have to be, there's no other choice. And besides- you know I won't be alone."

Considering what he has to go back to, he can't very well argue the point. Asking her to leave would be like asking him to give up on the Remnants.

"Then- take care of yourself, Veronica. Swing by the Fort next time you're in Vegas."

"Thanks. I will. Oh- one more thing."

"Name it."

"If you see that courier...give her a hello from me with that plasma defender."

"I will."

***

"You certainly took your time getting here," Dean Domino snipes, as they open the gate. "And must we travel in the company of this- blue creature?"

"He's carrying most of the gold," Benny says. "So unless you're volunteering to play pack mule, stick a spork in it."

"I withdraw any objection."

They finally, finally walk out of those cursed gates. Benny lets himself take one last look back, smiles.

Whatever else happens, the Sierra Madre will never be a tourist threat to New Vegas; and that's worth all the hell they've been through.

He turns back towards the Mojave, and home.


	12. As time goes by

One of the advantages of being a casino boss, it's possible to comp yourself the high-roller suite whenever you want. Not that it's good for business, but with the proceeds from nine gold bars, the Tops can afford to splash out some. 

Benny pours out liquor from the well-stocked bar, pauses before starting on it to go check on Arcade again, just because he can. His lover's still nestled under the sheets, dead to the world. 

Much healthier-looking now than when they'd left the Sierra Madre, less strained and anxious. They'd taken their time heading north, disguised as an unassuming caravan; it had been a while since he last had to rope a wild Brahmin for haulage but the knack hasn't deserted him yet.

So. On the one hand, the Sierra Madre money can smooth over this year's drop in casino revenue. On the other, that isn't worth much if the Legion makes it this far north and shutters them for good. Too bad they couldn't bring home any superweapons.

Benny cracks a mutfruit open, dips it in his drink. The Securitrons are worth plenty as a defense force, but not much for propaganda even if they are back on line now. They look silly, people are too used to throwing up on them after a hard night of debauchery, and given the post-House breakdown, they just won't command respect until an army goes up against them. Which will happen at Hoover Dam, but doesn't help them now-

"Thinking again?" A warm caress from behind, a tasty kiss under his left ear.

"Something like that. How's my favourite mercenary?"

"Your favourite- I will burn that outfit, I swear. And the hat. Especially the hat."

Benny chuckles, relaxes back against his lover. "I'm figuring sums. Trying to figure out our best chances- do we try to stick it on our own, or roll out the red carpet for the NCR?"

"Go independent," Arcade says immediately, sitting down next to him. "If you're asking what I hope for, at least. Putting aside my own desire for a sanctuary city, I do genuinely believe it'll do the NCR some good to bump up against something it can't mindlessly swallow or write off as tribal territory."

"Glad to hear we agree. Hoping to finance a Follower takeover of the city with your share of the gold?"

Arcade favors him with a profoundly deadpan look before turning his attention to a Nuka-Cola. "That's not how we operate, you know that. To be honest, I haven't decided what to do with the money yet. Buying off the NCR's search and destroy policy on any Remnants who might dare to show up and actually help fight Legion...it might take all of that and then some." His voice goes quiet. "I wonder if it would be enough to buy us immunity, if we confessed before the fighting starts and turned over the bunker too."

"Do you want to do that? It's your money."

Arcade frowns, sips his soda. "Not really. Daisy would kill me just for suggesting we hand over her Vertibird, and the others are in it for one last joyride….it was just a passing thought. I'll hang on to it for now."

"Good choice. Don't turn it in for chips, no matter what Tommy says."

"Thanks? I won't...uh, how is that working out? Having a new Chairman for the Tops."

"Necessary," Benny says, after a moment that's bleaker than he expected. "I mean, I get into it, sing me a switcheroo and all that, but Tommy's younger than he looks. He grew up living and breathing Vegas more than the old ways, to him the Strip is just the whole world. Someone's gonna have to break him of that sometime, but I can't juggle comps for Brahmin ranchers and...whatever the hell we call what we're doing. He's a good kid, he'll make sure the ship stays afloat when we're away."

Arcade leans in for a squeeze. "This is harder on you than you're willing to let on, isn't it."

Benny stares into the dark dregs of his cocktail. "I'd ask what I did to deserve this, but the answer's buried in a grave in Goodsprings. The moment I let Maria sing out then, I was in this for the duration."

"I haven't asked, because I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know," Arcade says softly. "When you grabbed the chip, was that because you wanted Vegas for yourself, or you disagreed with Mr House's plans, or what?"

He affords himself the luxury of a long dramatic sigh. "It came down to the Kings."

"What about them?"

"Mr House couldn't stand them, the idea that anybody would beat him at his own game by playing up to Vegas legend without accepting his control. He wanted them wiped out. I said I'd work on it, instead I invited Emily to the Ultra-Luxe for atomic cocktails...that could have been me," Benny says sourly. "Me who didn't knuckle under."

"That's a better reason than I was expecting," Arcade tells him. "I can- you know, I can live with that."

"There was also the opportunity of becoming big cheese in New Vegas, obviously. Don't underestimate that appeal."

"I think a refusal to go through with genocide is a good start," Arcade says, and pats him reassuringly on the back.


	13. A flower is a lonesome thing

"We need to wipe out the Fiends," Marjorie says. Her eyes glitter in the dim vault light, like the absinthe bottle she's brought with her.

It is one of the Strip's many ironies that no casino boss meeting can actually take place in a casino, as none of them would trust another's. Sarah Weintraub can peddle her little trinkets, but what mostly keeps her hotel going is the proceeds from maintaining the only completely neutral meeting-place in New Vegas. 

"That sounds like a good idea," Carlitos says meekly- what a pushover, the kid shouldn't even be here, but apparently the courier had slaughtered her way through the Omertas like a supersledge through roaches. So there wasn't anyone else to take over.

Probably he'd be more annoyed about that, Benny figures, if Big Sal hadn't been a two-timing traitor out to bomb the Strip. That kind of thing would ruin New Vegas' tourism for a generation, it makes no damn sense.

(He'd almost like to think the whole plot was a fake; but honestly, he did know Big Sal. And Nero. And Clanden, for that matter.)

"Any particular reasoning behind this, or are you just wanting to improve the tone of the neighborhood?" Marjorie has always rubbed him the wrong way, and he her, but she can at least run a casino and the Strip has enough chaos right now without another power-struggle. Doesn't mean he has to like it, though. "This isn't the first time you've advocated for that, and none of the problems about them being dug in to Vault 3 have changed last I heard."

"You're the one who called this meeting and asked for suggestions. I'm suggesting. Regardless of how we feel about NCR troops, fewer of them here and more at the Dam can't but be beneficial, and they simply won't move any until they can feel assured about Camp McCarran. You shouldn't need any convincing as to the wisdom of that. Fiends taking the monorail into the heart of the Strip," Marjorie takes a tiny sip of absinthe, shakes her head. "It doesn't bear thinking of. Especially if they invite their friends along."

"Friends? The Scorpions joined up with them or something?"

Carlitos unexpectedly laughs at him: once an Omerta always an Omerta, apparently. "You're out of the loop some, old-timer, aren't you? Word's out that Papa Khan is all set to tie the knot with Caesar. Considering how much they both hate the NCR…"

They couldn't. He's been to Red Rock Canyon, he has friends there, they're an independent minded bunch who never agree with anyone about anything. "All right, I'll see what I can do about that. And the Fiends, just for a flower on top. Any other miracles you two want while I'm marking my calendar?"

"More girls couldn't hurt," Carlitos says.

"I'll postpone renegotiating the civilised behavior contract until after Hoover Dam." Marjorie's manner is as demure as it is vicious.

Benny glares at her.

She smiles and toasts his health.

***

"Arcade, do you feel like a trip out west?"

"Sure! Absolutely. No question."

There is a frenetic energy- no, desperation- about his lover's manner that isn't adding up. Benny chews his lip, closes the tent flap to give them some privacy from the good-natured chaos of the Mormon Fort. "Everything okay?"

"I am...I am such an absolute idiot. It's almost hilarious. Julie is outraged with me."

"Are they worried that you're running around with me?"

"What? No, it isn't that, they're used to me disappearing- the courier showed up. Not in a bad way," Arcade adds hastily. "It seems she bought some of the slaves from Caesar's camp and escorted them here...one of them, Siri, was training to be a doctor before she was taken. First day she arrived she jammed the ingredients of healing powder in a syringe and invented New Vegas' very first homemade stimpak."

"Um...that's good, isn't it? What the Followers all wanted, a cheap and easy medicine that doesn't rely on prewar tech?"

"Yes, yes, and yes." Arcade runs a distracted hand through his hair. "It's wonderful. And if you knew how many years I have been messing around with test tubes while getting absolutely nowhere….by all means, drag me off to a cazador nest and ask me to zap things. I'm starting to think that NCR university training was a complete waste of everyone's time, especially mine."

His lover's clearly teetering on the edge of total hysteria, this has to be reined in now. Benny moves towards him, places his hands atop of Arcade's shoulders. "Hey. Hey, look at me. You know what, cupcake?"

"I'm not sure I want to know."

"Even if you're terrible at it, even if you were the worst doctor in the wasteland...it was important to you that you tried, right? That you weren't some cookie-cutter version of your dad? Do you know how little time I would have had for you in Caesar's camp, if you were another run-of-the-mill merc?" He runs his hands along the lab coat sleeve, from the circled cross down to the cuffs. "Being a Follower helped save your life. So, you know. Please don't knock it."

In the parlance of the Strip, this is what is known as a lie. He'd seen a hot piece of ass and done some thinking with his dick was all, the rest had come later.

But judging by the way Arcade grabs him and holds tight, ragged breathing coming back to calm, it's a lie he'll get away with.


	14. Only fools rush in

"Wanna help cook?" Jack asks. He isn't talking about food.

Normally, Arcade thinks ruefully, he would have nothing to do with drug manufacture. Normally he would also not be in the company of people who think it's funny to sic Legion assassins on newcomers. For a faction that's thinking about allying with Caesar, the Great Khans had certainly seemed to enjoy watching him take the quartet down. There had been applause and cheers during the fight, bets offered and taken, while he'd fought for his life in a desperate panic.

If God hadn't given him Elijah's LAER as a farewell present, for telling him about Jacobstown...what the absolute hell Benny sees in Red Rock Canyon is beyond him. Holing up in the drug kitchen seems like the least bad option.

"Glad to help. Med-X? Mentats?" Maybe there'll be some Buffout on offer. The way he feels now, he could use it.

"Today we're doing Jet," Jack says, grinning. "Hope you like Brahmin shit."

Given this or another round at the Sierra Madre, ghosts actually sound quite good right now.

***

"Benny!"

"Regis!"

They pound each other's backs, shake, all the usual folderol- it's great being back. Fresh air, riotous atmosphere, this is the closest he'll get to the Boot Riders that would have been if...well, if he hadn't come along. It's an irony.

Benny shoves that out of his mind, spends the next few hours getting smashed out of his skull. Sometimes he thinks Regis wouldn't be so pleased to see him if it wasn't an excuse to sample the product, and if so, all the better. Positive reinforcements, they call it down at the New Vegas clinic.

It does mean it's well past sunset before they get down to talking business, smoking and lazing around a campfire. He hopes Arcade is getting on okay.

"All right, you old bastard...what brings you here this time? Jessup never made it home, so if it's manpower, go chase it down yourself."

Benny raises his hands. "Not guilty! Anyone who cut and ran just because of a few Deathclaws on the road, could be they died of over-caution but I didn't make 'em a lead present. Maybe they holed up with Manny in Novac, they were heading that way."

"Anybody else, vanishing our best mercs, Papa would want to shoot first and interrogate later." Regis takes a swig of moonshine. "I hope you're not here chasing a favor."

"...too bad, so sad," Benny says, rolling another cigarette. "Listen. I need to know which way you cats plan to swing when the Dam goes up. Down. Whatever. You're the biggest uncommitted faction left in the Mojave, a hint wouldn't come amiss."

"No answers," Regis says, staring into the flames. "Papa's had his head filled full by the Legion ambassador-"

"The fuck? Fort-man is sending out diplomat bags now?" Too much agave in this mix. Shame.

"You didn't get one?" Regis looks amused. "Oh, wait, your pussycats wouldn't because you're busy hiding behind NCR butt. Live a little, look out for yourselves, maybe you'll be invited to the ball too."

Benny swears, can't quite drop the bantering tone. "You remember that time I asked Papa about cutting out the middleman? How I thought it might be a good thing for you, New Vegas, and everybody else except the Fiends if the Khans moved north to Vault 3 and peddled from there? Close enough to Vegas to get protection, far enough you can keep the tents. I've got a Securitron army that says the NCR quits Camp McCarran after Hoover Dam."

"And I'll tell you what I said before. Clean out the vault and we'll talk, otherwise, you're spilling out as much moonshine as you're drinking." Regis finishes the bottle, snacks his lips in satisfaction. "I'll admit, the sooner the better. I don't think a chem-producer faction will do well under Caesar, but they aren't NCR so Papa is listening. Give us a plausible alternative, I'll get Melissa and the others on board."

"...I need another drink."

"Take your pick. We have all night."

***

When he finally staggers back to the tent at an unwholesome hour, it's to find Arcade curled on a bedroll and actually whimpering.

"Hey, baby...what happened? Not enough Ben-man in your day?"

His lover burrows into his grasp, shaky as hell. "I've had to fight off a Legion squad by myself, helped cook a drug batch that will further screw up Freeside, spent an evening listening to teenager poetry so bad I feel preemptively guilty about inflicting him on the Followers, and to top it off…"

"Yeah, cupcake?"

"And to top it off you're trying your best to help these people, and it's terrible of me to be churlish about it," Arcade murmurs. He seems easier now, exhausted enough to be drifting quickly into sleep.

Benny strokes his hair, and decides the part about taking out Vault 3 single-handed can wait for morning.


	15. Never tie you down

"I think you should go back to Freeside."

"I don't."

Damn it, he's not actually sure what to do with a response like that. Benny rolls up the jacket of his lucky suit, always the first thing to be unpacked and the last to be put away before leaving a place. "Infiltration isn't a cooperative job. One of us will have enough trouble getting into the Fiend vault, let alone two."

"And you think it should be you." Arcade looks dubiously at the honey mesquite the Khans have offered them for breakfast, digs out a packet of crispy squirrel from his voluminous pockets instead. "After that fiasco on Fortification Hill? Getting caught for using hair gel?"

"I'm a better liar than you are, at least."

"I'm not at all sure about that." Arcade pops a piece of squirrel in his mouth, frowning. "Forgive me for pointing it out, but- you didn't go your entire adult life hiding your background."

"And you've done such a good job yourself- admit it, aren't you in the Mojave because there's fewer people to check credentials on the frontier?" Arcade's missing out, Benny decides; the pods are rich and smoky, well barbecued.

"True. I'm afraid of losing you," his lover says, so flatly it feels more like a comment on the weather than anything romantic. "It's not like I'll have another chance at what we have- I'm pushing forty, and the circumstances that threw us together are, thank goodness, incredibly unlikely to come up again- but you're irreplaceable. I could find another lover, I don't think I would ever give away my trust again like I have to you."

"You're saying all this like you're convinced I'm going on a suicide mission."

There is something very clinical about Arcade's expression now, detached, and Benny can't help thinking this is how he must look in Freeside when delivering bad news.

"You must think it is, or you'd let me come along. If it's too dangerous for both of us, it's too dangerous for you."

Benny groans, rubs the skin of his forehead with his knuckles. It's too early for this. "Give me a better plan, then. Get your power armor out of storage and go Fiend hunting?"

"You know, that's...actually not the worst idea."

***

The rumor starts in Westside, where generally reasonable members of the militia swear to having seen a very peculiar character. Tall, not marked by the symbols of any faction, only to be seen around dusk and dawn when the reflection of light off its polish makes the damn thing impossible to get a good look at.

Great Khans, travelling back and forth on their usual drug runs, confirm the tale; they've seen it cutting swathes through Fiends with a ghost light. Others aren't touched.

A few courageous caravans start trying the route south, a quicker way home to the NCR. Orange and teal, they say. Too fast for power armor. Definitely not Brotherhood.

Some Fiends start trickling into Freeside, where Julie and her team help them detox mentally and physically. It's no good any more, they say; not with the Neon out there, better to clean up than face that.

"The Neon what?" Dr Gannon asks, apparently hopelessly baffled. 

They shrug at him. It glows like a Strip sign, it's the spirit of New Vegas coming to haunt them. They don't know what else to call it.

"I took a perfectly good Freeside doctor and fucked him up is what I did," Benny says to the silent Securitron in his room at the Tops. "The worst part is I know I'd do it again."

Maybe Swank isn't listening, but it's nice to think he might.


	16. There will be plenty implied

There is no good reason for him to be alive right now, Arcade thinks.

Apart from everything else, his body hurts- just about every part that can be crippled has been from the feel of it, a pulse that should be thumping with adrenaline is slow from blood loss and exhaustion. He'd activated every damn stimpak he had after his suit cracked open, that and hope is all that's holding him together right now.

Enclave power armor's good, but not good enough to have taken on all four Fiend leaders at once. He honestly hadn't expected they could organize well enough to gang up on him like that.

At least they shouldn't have his suit. Someone very skilled with science could have wired around the auto-destruct built to go off if he was forcibly removed from it, but they'd have to think to look, and he's pretty sure the Fiends don't have anyone of that caliber in the first place.

"Well, well, well. Is little birdie awake?"

Arcade opens his eyes, sees he's not on the battlefield anymore. It's a cell, and Cook-Cook is looking down at him. He's made it inside Vault 3 at last.

"Little birdie, we are going to have some fun."

_Benny. Benny, please don't come for me. One of us is enough to get hurt._

"You could look less worried about it. I'm in a good mood, a tolerant mood." The Fiend is actually grinning now, with teeth. "Violet and Motor-Runner and Driver Nephi dead, you've made me top dog in the Fiends. I'm grateful for that. Consider your life spared."

It's not a voluntary reaction that makes him drag himself backwards across the cell floor, it's a flight response from someone who's too broken to fight any more. Not that it helps. Cook-Cook unlocks the cell and walks in, stands over him.

"Think of it. Enjoying a nice long life, chock-ful of my gratitude."

"Cook-Cook? If you don't get your hands off the merchandise, I'm not paying the ransom."

Normally, he would be horrified to hear that voice. As it is right now, Arcade thinks, there is literally no way the Courier could make this situation worse.

He hates to admit it, but it gives him a fluttering of hope.

"I haven't decided whether to sell him or not," Cook-Cook growls, turning towards her. "It might be that I want to keep this morsel after all."

"Ah. In that case-"

He remembers seeing the Courier take enemies out like this, one-two-three in the blink of an eye and the target's head has detached from the body. Her skills have, if anything, improved. Cook-Cook's dead before he hits the ground.

"Evening, Arcade. How'd you end up in there?"

"...it's a long story." She is unpredictable as hell, still, and he can't guess whether to thank her or get ready for his last fight.

"Might as well come along with me, then. That idiot Cass fled when the fighting got tough, I could use a new companion."

Truth is, though, if anyone could waltz into this vault and get out alive, it's her. 

Arcade absently brushes dried blood from his coat sleeve and comes along.


	17. A bird in a gilded cage

_Reasons to be ~~cheerful~~ \- annoyed. _

Arcade isn't sure who wrote that at the top of the billiard room clipboard, but it describes his own disintegrating mood with surprising accuracy. He grabs a pencil and sets about making a list.

 _Number one, the Lucky 38 elevator is broken_. Without a Securitron, it won't do anything.

 _Number two, the only available Securitron is some damn miniature toy that refuses to talk about anything but mugs_. He has to assume that it's a particularly annoying security feature to stop anyone trying to reprogram it; certainly, he locks the bedroom door whenever he's tired enough to be forced to sleep, because otherwise the singing about mugs is unbearable.

 _Reason three, can't get in touch with anyone._ Especially Benny. It's been four days since the Courier teleported him back here with her Pip-Boy protocol and not only is everybody in his life probably convinced he's dead by now, it's getting distinctly lonely in here. He hadn't best liked the place back when the Courier had first assembled her crew, and at least Boone and Lily had been company of sorts then.

(Sweet rads, it's a blessing that Lily's fighting style had been too close to the Courier's to be useful. Jacobstown is definitely a better place for her than this.)

 _Reason four, it's been four days and the fridge is empty._ The Courier's Nuka-Cola Quartz stash is strictly off-limits, and under normal circumstances he wouldn't touch it, but right now he needs the sugar rush. Even if it does make the Securitron cry doleful machine wails about its general uselessness.

"There are entire casinos of dirty mugs out there," he tells it. "An infinite number in the Wasteland. All you need to do is unlock the elevator and go chase them."

"If I was meant to clean other people's mugs, she would have opened the way for me," the Securitron says dolefully. Then it brightens a little. "At least I get to clean some mugs here, which is more than I used to!"

Arcade groans and chews the end of his pencil. 

There's a soft whoosh in the hall, somebody else sent here. He firmly shuts the door on the Securitron before even looking to see who it is.

"Uh, hello. My name's Arcade Gannon. Under normal circumstances, I'm a doctor with the Followers in Freeside."

"Raul Alfonso Tejada. The boss didn't mention anyone else would be here."

A ghoul, huh. A blue one is weird- wait, no, that's probably just the soda. Hard to figure out what the Courier might want from him. "Not surprising. In a way it's almost a relief, only I was hoping she'd come soon so I could try to leave."

"Oh? Something I should hear that she didn't mention?"

Might as well go for broke. "Well, sure. From my point of view, I'm being held captive by a madwoman with a killer robot who finds me useful to have around but isn't interested enough in my existence to have even basic consideration for my welfare."

"Wow," the ghoul says. "That is…definitely unfortunate. I can see why you'd want to go."

"I would, only the elevator's broken."

"That, I can fix," Raul says, flashing him a set of very ugly teeth. "The Mojave's best handyman at your service."

It takes him twenty minutes and a lot of Spanish cursing, but the ding of the elevator bell is the sweetest thing Arcade's heard all week.

***  
When they get to the lobby, Benny's standing there, holding a copy of Programmer's Digest in one hand and Maria in the other.

"Benny? How'd you get in here?"

"I have been hacking Robco terminals across the Mojave," Benny says, his voice sounding raw and husky. "And nagging Emily to death. And generally panicking- don't you ever do this to me again, you overgrown turnip."

He buries his face in Arcade's lab coat with a noise uncommonly like a sob. Arcade, startled, lets him.

"Well, it's nice that you two found each other," Raul says. "If you don't mind, I have a shack to get back to."

"Take care," Arcade says. "Uh, watch out for that Courier."

He lets Benny hug him for a bit longer and then breaks the hold; there's a hot squirrel stew outside with his name on it.


	18. And the living is easy

"I could take him to the Tops," Benny offers. "Lots of Securitrons and Chairmen there to keep him safe."

"I don't want to move him," Julie says. "How he even made it here in one piece is a genuine question."

They're in Arcade's tent at the Mormon Fort, watching him sleep peacefully; and arguing about the consequences Benny knows will come.

"Look, you haven't seen this courier in action, have you? She can lay waste to anything from Powder Gangers to Deathclaws with a piece of lead pipe and a smirk. If she gets the impression you're holding Arcade from her, there won't be anything left in this fort but smoking ash."

"You've seen her on the battlefield. The woman I know," Julie says, her face set, "brought a group of Legion captives here at great personal risk to herself, she had their intense gratitude. You may be right in expecting the worst of her rather than the best, but for now I want Arcade to be somewhere he feels safe, with adequate medical treatment. Right here."

"...is it really worth," Benny says, deciding to appeal to blatant selfishness. "Is it really worth the risk of destroying everything you've built here, just to protect one of your own? When you know I could do it better?"

"Yes," Julie says instantly, eyes blazing. "I don't give up on my patients."

He's starting to see how this woman commands so much respect.

***

That being the case, there really isn't anything left but to hang around right here, smoking and annoying the other Followers.

Tensions in the Mojave are reaching breaking point. He can all but taste the upcoming battle on the wind, ashes of old battles prophecising the next. Just about every faction has drawn their lines now, one way or the other.

And his job, of course, is to stay well out of it. If the NCR can't hold Hoover Dam with the aid of a Securitron army and the Enclave Remnants, a few Chairmen won't make much of a difference anyway. Whoever wins will make a play for New Vegas next, flush with triumph; all his plans have revolved around making sure that won't work.

They say everywhere south of Novac is in chaos now, radiation spills at Searchlight, a battlefield at Nelson. So be it. The Great Khans have evacuated to Vault 3, Westside is brimming with refugees, he can't save the whole Mojave.

"You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders," Emily says. "What happened to the razzle-dazzle checkers man, huh?"

"Call back when the war's over, I'm sure he'll be happy to show you a good time." His heart's not really in it. Arcade is more awake now than he was a week ago, Julie's optimistic about a full recovery, but his lover's still not really all there yet except for catching up on medical journals. At least his head doesn't seem to have been affected too badly.

"What a bummer," Emily says, in a fair attempt at his own dulcet tones. "I always liked your unbreakable tastelessness."

Benny gives her a wan smile. "I didn't properly thank you for helping me out, did I? Chasing from that tools factory to Camp Golf, just on the off-chance of overriding the Lucky 38 subroutines...I'm grateful, believe me. Let me know whenever you want a real passport to the Strip instead of Ralph's forgery."

"He said nobody could tell the difference. What a liar."

"I couldn't. Lucky guess."

She grins at him, that mischievous look that had made him decide to ask for her help, an eon or so ago. "Anyway, you only had to ask. For Arcade I'd have done anything up to walking into Fortification Hill myself...damn it, aren't you the lucky one."

He hasn't actually mentioned their relationship to anyone here. "That obvious, eh?"

"Let's put it this way. We don't usually have casino bosses hanging around here for days on end just for kicks...god, I am so jealous," Emily says, shaking her head. "I can't even talk to him, but I went on a wild expedition with you just on the off-chance he might. Notice me. Be grateful in a way beyond just saying thanks, and I am so, so stupid, because I know he's queer as mutfruit and he won't ever look at me that way. Still. Daydreaming about it helped save his life, I guess I can't be too sorry about that."

It would, Benny decides, just be cruel to mention that Arcade had done a perfectly good job of rescuing himself without outside intervention. "If this was a year ago, I'd offer you a consolatory fuck."

Emily's eyes go wide. "Oh...no. Thanks, but no. I couldn't live with myself putting a wedge between you two- it is just the two of you, isn't it?"

"Actually...yeah." With Swank out of the picture and a city to save, he just hasn't had the time to chase up extracurricular. No wonder he's stressed.

"Well then, look after him better next time. And you can give him this from me." She leans in, deposits a kiss that utterly puts the lie to all those gags about Followers being cheerful celibates who think tongues are for talking.

He reciprocates, a little bit. It feels mean to refuse.


	19. Dancing with the devil

"So what were you doing with the courier, anyway?" Benny is toying with the Fort's new jukebox, his own donation to the Followers. It's going over well; people like having a radio with more range than ramshackle NCR surplus. "Between getting rescued and being locked in a dead casino."

"A trip to Utah, of all places. Something about covering her flanks- she knew exactly what she wanted to do. An old Legion legate who she chopped into about forty pieces, and then had me verify he was dead."

"Overkill much?"

"Given that the NCR had something like six different verified kill reports on him, maybe not. She sent me back after that, said she'd stay on herself a while longer. I'm not sure if she wanted to get the local Legion agents on her side or wipe them out."

"Utah's problem, not ours," Benny says, leaning in for a little quick fondling. "I'm just glad she wasn't after you to cure Caesar again."

"Ah. No. Apparently he's all better now, thanks to her patching up his auto-doc with spare parts from a vault."

"She couldn't have just done that in the first place, instead of dragging you into it?"

"Believe me, I had some extremely forceful sentiments on that topic as well." Arcade strokes his lover's hair, kisses it. "Mind if we go somewhere, ah, a little more private? Only we have a lot of catching up to do, and I don't mean intelligence reports."

"You Followers are such a horny bunch. It's amazing."

"Side benefit of a clear conscience. Can't recommend it enough."

***

By the time they emerge from their tent, a bit stickier and a lot more cheerful, night's falling and the evening meal is being served. They stand in line for maize-iguana hotpot like everybody else, lulled by New Vegas' easy clamor and the slow brightening of light from the Strip.

Almost feels like there isn't a war out there after all.

Until they sit down, and the shadow of an unmistakable courier falls over them.

Arcade looks at her straight on, says nothing, starts in on his meal. Benny fingers the reassuring weight of Maria in his holster. "Don't you have a war to run?"

"I do, which is what I'm doing here." Her gaze on Arcade is judgmental, clinical, prepossessing. "If you'd mentioned having skills beyond the purely medical, I wouldn't have turned you over to Caesar."

"I didn't trust you," Arcade says, somewhat indistinctly through a mouthful of dumpling. He coughs, swallows. "Which you have to admit was entirely justified."

"I won't argue with that. But the Enclave Remnants could turn the tide at Hoover Dam, and if you name the price, I'll fulfill it. Guaranteed safety in Legion territory, Freeside turned over to the Followers, anything you care to ask for."

"I am right here," Benny growls. "You do not get to talk about selling off my city like a poker stake."

"Your pipsqueak alliances don't mean a thing in the face of real power," the Courier says, very coolly. "Once NCR hegemony in the Mojave is broken, Caesar gets his new Rome. If you can't see that, you're even more delusional than I thought."

Arcade is giving her the sort of mildly annoyed look he normally reserves for radroaches. "You're very sure of yourself, for someone who's coming begging."

"It's not the Hoover Dam battle that concerns me, it's the subsequent power struggle. If I can break Lanius' control over the Legion, establish myself as Caesar's successor, I can turn it to my way of thinking. Scrap the slavery, give women a real role. You believed I was capable of it once, or you wouldn't have travelled with me."

Arcade's look of appalled self-loathing says that much is true. "Courier, I couldn't talk them into it if I wanted to. I've been disgraced, absolutely humiliated in the most abject way possible for someone from the Enclave-"

(Benny winces, turns up the jukebox volume to give them a bit more cover. He really needs to talk to Arcade about not spouting off in public.)

"-my power armor's a write-off after that run-in I had with the Fiends, that used to be a court-martial offense punishable by death in Navarro. I mean, they all think I'm a kid still, they wouldn't push it that far, but no way could I change their minds about anything now. You couldn't either."

"They can't be persuaded to fight against the faction that wiped out the Enclave?"

Arcade grins, with a rather boyish blush. "That's old history. These days, they have sort of a grudge against the faction that thought holding me as a slave was a good move- funny thing how karma works sometimes, isn't it?"

The Courier's a robot, Benny reminds himself. If she looks tired, that's because her programming is choosing to respond to a situation with appropriate social cues. "I see."

"So have fun at Hoover Dam. Send a postcard to tell us who won."

"I'll deliver it myself."

There's a fixity of purpose about her, Benny can't help thinking, that really could upend the whole Mojave if she put her mind to it. Robert House's last and greatest legacy, a creation even he couldn't control.

"You might as well bring this to the Lucky 38, then," the Courier says. Hands Benny an override chip.

"What's it do?"

"It'll activate House's personal reactor. Enough power to run New Vegas, from Westside to the eastern cistern...if Hoover Dam is destroyed in the fighting, I want this city to still be standing when I come back here to claim it." 

"Big words from a little woman," Benny says, turning it over in his hand.

She bares teeth at him. "You couldn't kill me the first time. Don't think you'd have any more luck on a second attempt."

"Of course not." The Mormon Fort is neutral turf, no way would he break that trust.

The Courier nods, finally slips away.

"That was a hell of a bluff," Arcade mutters.

"What was?"

"Oh, like I'd just give up on my family's power armor- I mean, there's a repairman out there who I've made the richest ghoul in the Wasteland, but after the Sierra Madre I could afford it. At yours and New Vegas' disposal, at need."

"Maybe not any time soon. Useful as it was, I don't exactly want to encourage the city putting all its faith in mysterious crime-fighting shadows."

"Aw. Just when I was getting into the part, too." Arcade scrapes the last bite from his bowl, looks at the chip Benny is still handling. "Are you going to risk installing that?"

"I think so. Swank mentioned it was a possibility…and besides, she wouldn't kill me like this."

His mind goes back to Goodsprings, the taste of cigarettes, an open grave.

She'd told him that night, what kind of death he should expect.

Let it come. New Vegas is safe.


End file.
